Slowtrain

and so it begins...

Pretty much my feelings as well, though perhaps not quite as positive on MW. I'm expecting, perhaps foolishly so, a big improvement from Oblivion to Skyrim. I think Bethesda learned some valuable lessons on how not to do things with Oblivion. And I think their work on FO3 can only make the ES products better. So, I am surprisingly positive on Skyrim, especialy considering my extreme dislike of Oblivion.

re: universal ammo For me and my gameplay tastes, universal ammo is simply too abstract and simplfied to be interesting. Its the same as having one Universal Skill that governs every action or one Universal Gun that does everything. To some degree it depends upon the design focus of the gameplay: a game that is less focused on combat can probably benefit from simplifing combat-releated aspects, so maybe universal ammo works. The big problem for me in IW wasn't the simplification of universal ammo, rather it was the simplification of almost every aspect of the game, from the levels, to the biomods, to the skills etc. The ammo part was the least siginificant of those problems.

Last trailer I saw looked pretty cool. Reminded me of Far Cry 2's setting but with gameplay that looked a lot more fun. If it comes out for pc, I'd give it a shot.

Perhaps not universally applicable, but still useful as a general guide...

One of my biggest warning bells on DX:HR is that Morgoth appears to like it. If so, how good can it possibly be...

Who? lol. Peter Hines and Todd Howard always come off to me like some 2 headed pr/developer creature. The transposition was ineviyable at some point.

Nice to see so much positive take here.

Plus the fact Oblivion was so bad. My anticipation for each subsequent ES game has dropped following each iteration since Daggerfall. Still, I am feeling more positive about this one than I probably should be based on Pete Howard's track record of continually mutilating the ES franchise with increasing fervor. But I can't help wondering if I'm just letting my desire for another quality ES game get in the way of observation and common sense. We'll see, though, won't we.

One of my concerns, as usual for Bethesda, is that they've prioritized quantity over quality way too much. Again. Often it seems to matter less to Bethesda if something is good than that there is a lot of them.

Or if you weren't actively powerleveling and metagaming your character, which to some degree you almost had to do to stay alive at higher levels.

I get your point but it's not quite as rigid as that, I'm at level 19 and I still see plenty of molerats and bloatflies when I enter new areas, Deathclaws don't often spawn anywhere other than Old Olney or around the Dunwich Building and Girdershade, Yao Guai on the other hand seem to get a massive boost when you pass a certain level. Yep, there's still a range that's seems wider than oblivion when spawning encounters. iirc Oblivion's range was -6 to +3 char levels with increasing probability of spawns close to the char level. Fallout 3 seems to have a full range of spawns to some degre throughout the game. I'm not really criticizing Fallout 3 per se. It's better than Oblivion certainly. The biggest improvement in the scaling system for me was that Fallout 3 eliminated the whole goatherder-npcs-being- equipped-with-glass-cuirasses-and-daederic-claymores syndrome. Plus in Fallout 3 the average raider isn't running around in power armor while toting gatling lasers regardless of your char level, which they pretty much were in Oblivion.

Fallout 3 didn't actually work like that though. Bloatflies became mole rats became radscorpions became Yao Guai became Deathclaws pretty universally. Likewise super mutants became supe mutant brutes became supermutant masters. Likewise Protectrons became Robobrains became Mr. Gutsys became whatever. It was pretty much identical to Oblivion. Only difference was that FO3 had a couple areas with high level enemies right from the start such as Old Olney and the Yau Guai caves.

These are all true. Plus the stealth was poor and the fps combat atrocious. Still, somewhow it overcame all these in some sort of weird cyber/gaming gestalt. A layman's terms: a miracle. Yet there you go. If the head of Jesus Christ can appear in bread mold, why not DX?

I'd agree but only if if you replace DX with Bioware. I mean, jeezus kriste, freaking BW? ugh. 2x.

Has Pete Hines ever said anything significant?

Nice looking doggie! Least it looks like a dog and not a wolf.

WOuld you say it was more or less dull than FO3? I'm curious to what degree NV might simply have been hamstrung by the base mechanics of FO3.

Goody :3 and the point was that every game after '09 has been a bust? lol. I'm not sure what the point was other than it had something to do with Tale's post about DX:HR being a game that even the haters can't hate. It does happen! Every once in an while.

That body type doesn't seem to fit a Redguard though. I always picture Redguards as being muscular but lean. That image looks a little too much like a barrel-chested body builder, ie a nord.

It's bound to happen once in a while. If it helps you hold on to your sanity though, I will hate it for you. I hate pretty much every game made after 2001 so not such a big stretch really. You hate Shadow of the Colossus, Uncharted, AC, and Demon Souls I think I wouldn't wanna be friends with ya. I don't actually hate every game made after 2001. There was a larger point somewhere...

It's bound to happen once in a while. If it helps you hold on to your sanity though, I will hate it for you. I hate pretty much every game made after 2001 so not such a big stretch really.

lolwtfgtfoh

Was the combat actually less fun in Witcher 2 than in Witcher 1? Or was it just too much more of the same? I found the combat in Witcher 1 reasonably fun within the context of the overall game. I was hoping Witcher 2 would at least not be worse.

For some reason, I though the overall reception to Witcher 2 here had been overwhelmingly positive. I'm in less of a rush to find some free time to play it now.